pvdoom

Climate engineering is pretty risky, and in the current stage, so small scale, by the time we are able to actually do something it will be too late. And relying on just investments and market also wont get us there fast enough. Nuclear is definitely part of the solution, but also much more targeted regulations that outright limit fossil fuels, and initiatives that reduce/ban cars, rewild massive swats of nature, massively scaling down overproduction of goods, and also pushing for reduced consumption in the global north.

Lol, reading this in a call booth at work sure is something ...

Yes, absolutely

Re: first law ... one thing I have been thinking a lot lately is just how much like gardening software is. But in gardening we are not afraid to trim the plants and put them in shape as we go. In software we end up just adding stuff on top, without regard for the overall design. There is this bias towards always adding rather than removing things, and the key to keep things in order is to remove things, to say no, etc.

I think we can look into the notion from complexity theory of attractor states. If you want to make a change, you need to shift your system enough that it moves into another state.

In more normal words - the codebase will fight your changes. And that means that small incremental changes may not be enough, and you will need at least a few big leaps.

During the USSR, the Soviet government pushed the cyclic script on populations that speak very different languages, sometimes forcing them to abandon other scripts, i.e. arabic. Same during the Russian Empire.

Some Central European countries adopted the Latin script as a part of their alignment with Rome, and thus making a stronger political alignment.

Scripts and languages are very powerful political tools. In many cases what script a language uses is not a coincidence but a result of conscious choices and policies at some point.

Well, rental as another profit-driven thing, that has multiple consequences - it removes property away from people, it prevents people from getting their own place, it creates concentration of wealth, it drives policies that favour landlords, etc - i.e. big real estate corporations, and landlords generally have a lot more lobbying power than poor renters.

> A primary root cause of homelessness is lack of affordable housing.

Nah, I think that is still a consequence. The root cause is the fundamental assumption that homes should be a commodity that is bought, sold and rented out for profit, rather than something that everyone needs for survival. We should be looking at ways to limit the market here, or finding ways to not treat houses as a commodity, or something for rent-seeking

An alphabet is connected to a language. And controlling the language and its writing, especially related to religion is a very powerful tool. How you do communication, what culture is relevant for you, etc. And that happens even today - just think of the role English plays, and then American cultural artefacts. And compared it to French at the turn of the 20-th century

> So, author boils everything down to anti-Western politics a 1000 years ago and insists Cyrillic just got lucky that it spread so wide.

It's a mix of accurate and inaccurate. It is based on a 1000 years old anti-western politics, but also anti-Eastern politics. And it didn't just get lucky, but there was a massive, massive effort on part of the First Bulgarian Empire to spread it via missionaries and the like, which is what set the foundations for its later use up North, where later the Russian Empire became a thing and so on ...

During the time we are talking about politics and religion are one and the same ...

It's a bit more complicated. The OG cyclic was the the Glagolitic - which is very different from the greek alphabet. The proper Cyrillic, while based on the greek alphabet, was developed then specifically and consciously as a political project against Byzantium, as of course the byzantines would much prefer to use greek for church and business ...

> It's a different you.

I think some inhibitions or blockers fall off, and you kind of run on dream logic. I had some major surgery and my sister was supposed to come in and help out right after it. She came right as they were bringing me back in to the room, and apparently I was commandeering the doctors to give her space and make her a coffee cause "Im a fucking queen, and you will do as I tell you"... I don't remember any of it.

I think there is some nuance to it.The absolutely best thing for clean code for me has been taking courses in academic writing. But also why would it activate just the language centres of the brain - especially if you are asked to predict what a piece of code would do. I think comparing to say a planning task would be more akin...

My sister is in SF, and even though she nominally makes a little more than I do, I end up having much more disposable income, and can afford a lot more things, which is ... weird feeling